So I See... Konting Pananaw... LITO BANAYO

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Because I write articles three times a week here and twice a week for Abante, my writing chores end on Thursday when I file my Friday article. My weekend really begins Friday and ends Sunday. I normally write my Tuesday column either on Monday morning or Sunday afternoon. This was partly written on Friday afternoon, as I had planned to be out-of-town from Saturday.

A lot of jokes happened over this past weekend. The biggest joke, cruel at that, happened all day Saturday, well past the wee hours of Sunday. For many, even beyond Sunday morning. But that’s for the last part of this article.

* * *

Tony Cuenco, the gentleman from Cebu City’s southern district by the grace of Tommy Osmena’s consistent support until the last election, announced a “survey” he did of his fellows in the lower house. Who is their sentimental favourite for the presidency, asked Tony? Whether he did it by open or secret balloting, or whether he had face-to-face interviews as SWS and Pulse Asia claim of their methodology, Tony does not explain. Sentiments he polled, because if we go by their pocketbooks at the moment, everyone would croak like a PaLaKa.

And what did Tony claim his survey conclude? About a hundred representa-thieves are for Noynoy, claimed Cuenco. Of the other half, Manny Villar comes next, followed by Gibo Teodoro, then Chiz Escudero, and Erap last, his “informal survey” found out. Clearly, Tony’s “impressions”, as he himself puts it, are a joke.

He got the SWS Mega-Manila findings of Noynoy’s 51% and juxtaposes it on his own colleagues. Then he mentions Manny and Chiz, gives a sprinkling for Erap, but decides, like the party “faithful” he claims to be, that Gibo has suddenly jumped from 0.2 to the big leagues. It’s not extrapolation; it’s not arithmetic; it’s just a joke. Tony wants to ride on the Noynoy fever, that’s all.

What surprises is that media gave it due attention. Why, a broadsheet even bannered the story, as if the editors, let alone the writer, do not understand the science of polling. Of course, Tony’s sentiments are likely their sentiments as well. They publish Cuenco’s “impressions” to impress “facts” upon the unsuspecting. Propaganda, not straight news reporting.

* * *

Tony Cuenco himself is torn between his “utang na loob” to the Aquino family, principally the late President Cory, and his “loyalty” (kuno) to the PaLaKa, who has proclaimed another Cojuangco it’s standard-bearer. This looks more like riding on Cory, and riding on Noynoy, than anything else. Tony is no longer hunky-dory with Tommy Osmena, and since this is his last term as congressman, after finishing a previous three-term round, he knows not where to go.

Tell you what, Tony --- why not just retire? It’s been a long time. Haven’t your constituents tired of you anyway? In any case, please stop passing off your jokes as statistical data. Why, even Mitos Magsaysay of Zambales, the province of Jun Ebdane who seems to have tapped Garci to make him “president” next year, claims you forgot to ask her. How could you do that to a lady, Tony?

* * *

But here’s another joke: Silvestre Bello III, cabinet secretary of Dona Gloria, after saying his sentiments are also for Noynoy, now denies it, and says he was misquoted. “Are they doubting my loyalty to the President?”, asks Bello, who hopes to be senator of the realm.

But here’s where the guffaw comes --- “They know that I love the President very much, and we love each other.” (Oh my God! What will El Esposo say about this?”) Then Bello adds, “In the cabinet, we love one another. Even Secretary Romulo (who earlier confessed his sentiments for Noynoy), we still love him”. Ang dami mo namang mahal, Bebot. No wonder my friend from Davao, Luigi Santos, your father-in-law once upon a time, cannot forgive you.

* * *

And the following day, Kiko Pangilinan gets on the act. Even in the Senate, there are administration senators who are jumping ship because they are for Noynoy, the senator who would-be Noynoy’s vice-president (sana!) until Mar Roxas decided to beat him to it, exclaimed. Dadalawampu’t tatlo lang naman kayo diyan, Kiko, bakit hindi mo pa sabihin kung sinu-sino?

At least Cuenco can claim faulty arithmetic, and in his time at college, statistics was not yet a required subject. But Kiko? Twenty-three and you have to keep it a “secret”? Or is it because, like Tony, you’re also into “impressions”?

I recall when boss Jake Macasaet had a TB talk show in 1998. He invited a newly-appointed secretary in Erap’s cabinet? “So tell us your plans for your department”, Jake asked. “Secret!”, the cabinet member coyly answered. Boy, was Jake speechless.

“Secret”, Kiko now talks of closet Noynoy supporters in their Senate. The gentleman from Pampanga, Diliman and Pasay is fast becoming a joke.

* * *

There is a saying --- “amor con amor se paga”. Love is repaid with love. But in this rotten polity, amor se paga con dinero, mucho dinero. And the problem of the congressmen as well as the cabinet members of Bello’s kind is that Noynoy does not have the dinero (yet) with which to repay their “love”.

Noynoy and Chiz probably do not believe that “amor con amor se paga” as far as balimbings are concerned.

Which really means that as far as trapos are concerned, it’s really a run for the money, the mucho dinero of Manny Villar, unless their Dona cracks the barrel of public money to support Gibo, or is it Ebdane? These jokes.

* * *

But the biggest, and most cruel joke --- was really on us. And we heard, saw, felt, experienced it last Saturday. After incessant downpour brought by Ondoy, we realized that government in this benighted land hardly exists.

Oh, it exists in voluble press statements. It’s great when it comes to propaganda, though it uses the queerest and most unintelligible propagandists. Part of their communication strategy, I guess. You know, send in the clowns.

When disaster struck, and everyone needed government’s presence, we all realized there was hardly any. They’ve been playing a joke all these years on us all. Of course the scope of the calamity was overwhelming, but that does not mitigate a most underwhelming response.

Imagine scrambling around for rubber boats, and having a dozen or so, and being paralyzed from morning till night to do anything to save people left to suffer and die and cry on their rooftops? Saksakan ba naman ng mahal yung mga p…i… rubber boats na iyon at naghahagilap tayo kapag kailangan? And to think that just months ago, Gibo Teodoro launched an infomercial touting his NDCC’s disaster preparedness! Remember what T-E-O-D-O-R-O was supposed to mean, as crafted by a most uncreative talent manager turned creative director? Maybe even his principal can no longer recall that corny joke of an infomercial.

In the afternoon of the public ordeal, there were even radio reporters wondering why we could not run to the US of A for those goddamn inflatables with outboard motors. Hey guys, are you so jurassic you thought the military bases were still around? (For those who yet remember, now is the time to wish those f…g bases were still around.)

Flood-prone Marikina could have kept on stockpile a hundred bamboo rafts in their flood-prone barangays, primitive perhaps, but useful nonetheless for neighbourhood streets turned into grand canals. And rubber boats in their riverbanks. But to leave thousands stranded on rooftops well into the wee hours of the following morning unattended, that is rank negligence. In the afternoon when the rains had somewhat abated, where were the presidential choppers and even Hueys to try to help bring those inflatables or whatever else to Marikina, to QC, to Cainta, to all over the benighted metropolis sunk by tons of rain?

And all you got was a joke of a president playing-out crocodilian concern, showing “hands-on” propaganda at five in the afternoon. And a disaster manager who is all talk and hardly any preparedness when actual disaster struck.

Only the navy and the army were around to try with excruciatingly few resources at hand --- to save lives, and too late in the day because the police were hardly visible to do something about a traffic nightmare left to the elements to fester, and frayed nerves to discombobulate. Well into the night, and well into the wee hours, there was hardly even a traffic aide to somehow bring some kind of f…g order in our f…g streets.

* * *

Let the military take over governance in these benighted parts. Yes Virginia, I mean it. Replace this useless civilian government. The junior officers and their men; not some of their fat and fattened generals. These young officers are about the only people left in government with enough sense of duty, with enough discipline, with some patriotism left in their hearts.

Everyone else is campaigning, or stealing, or both.

Jokers, playing jokes on us all, and charging us humongous fees by way of taxes at that --- to watch, listen and experience their god-awful joke called governance.

Lito Banayo

Lito Banayo’s involvement in Philippine politics began with a chance encounter with the late Benigno Aquino, Jr. in the spring of 1981, at the Washington Hotel in Washington D.C. Ninoy Aquino was then on exile, after having undergone heart bypass surgery. That started a series of week-end visits to Ninoy’s home in Boston.

In the fall of 1982, Lito decided to come home to the Philippines after two-year stay in the United States, and as he bade goodbye to Ninoy, he was asked to help the then fledging political opposition in the country.

Lito Banayo asked Ninoy who he would report to, and was told to see Doy Laurel. Banayo was quizzical, for the Laurels had been Marcos’ political padrinos in the past. Ninoy told him however that Doy Laurel and he grew up together and were almost like brothers. Thus did Lito Banayo enter the world of a political technician, his description for the kind of work he has been doing since.

He helped Doy Laurel and Eva Estrada Kalaw organized the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) which became the major coalition against the Marcos regime. At a time when media was controlled and Marcos’ monolithic political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) was all over, UNIDO put up a difficult but nonetheless successful struggle.

In the 1984 Batasang Pambansan elections, the UNIDO coalition won 60 of 180 seats, with an overwhelming majority in Metro Manila and key capital cities. Lito Banayo was deputy spokesperson and deputy campaign manager of that national campaign, working under Ernesto Maceda, who later became Senate President, and Alfonso Policarpio, Ninoy’s publicist.

When Ninoy Aquino returned to the Philippines after years of exile, it was Lito Banayo who, along with Erik Espina, coined the welcome slogan “Ninoy, Hindi Ka Nag-iisa,” a welcome greeting that eventually became a political battlecry after the latter was assassinated at the tarmac of the international airport.

When Cory Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, and Doy Laurel, his childhood friend, later challenged Ferdinand Marcos in the historic “snap” elections of February 1986, Lito was one of the major campaign technicians in an effort that drew many volunteers from all walks of life.

He was appointed Postmaster-General after the Edsa uprising that resulted in the downfall of Marcos and the ascent of Aquino. At the postal office, he initiated major systemic reforms, and initiated its transformation from a budget-dependent office under the transport and communications department into an autonomous government corporation now called Philippine Postal Corporation.

He has become political consultant to various names in Philippine politics – Senator Orlando Mercado, Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan, and now Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. He was consultant too of Speaker Ramon Mitra, Jr., Ronaldo Zamora, Manuel A. Roxas III and Hernando B. Perez, all congressmen at the time.

In 1992, he was campaign spokesman of the Mitra-Fernan presidential tandem. In 1995, he handled the campaign of Senator, later Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan. In 1998, he was in the campaign team that helped Joseph Ejercito Estrada become president of the land. His erstwhile principal, Mercado, was named campaign manager. During the term of President Estrada, he was Secretary-General of Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, the political party of the then President.

He served as General Manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority from June 30, 1998 to November 3, 2000. He was also concurrently appointed as Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs with cabinet rank, by President Joseph Estrada. Although he resigned from the Estrada cabinet earlier, he was with the deposed president until his last hours in Malacanang.

In 2001, he was campaign manager for then retired PNP director-general Ping Lacson’s difficult but highly successful run for the Philippine Senate. He also helped Ping Lacson as a contender for the presidency in 2004, as well as Manila Mayor Lito Atienza in administrative matters at City Hall during his term.

Lito Banayo finished Economics at Letran College, then undertook graduate studies at the Ateneo Business School, as well as the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration.

He is native of San Pablo City, Laguna, and Malolos, Bulacan, but his family has moved to Butuan City in Agusan del Norte since the early sixties, although he himself has lived in Manila throughout most of his life. He is married and is blessed with three children.